‘We like the Beckhams because they have shown us that you can still be very rich and very successful and apparently quite modest and funny and nice.’
Photograph: Karwai Tang/WireImage

First there was the fairytale. It started with an Irish castle, and golden thrones, and a forest. The forest, it’s true, wasn’t actually a forest, rather a “forest theme” as part of a Robin Hood theme; and the thrones the couple sat on weren’t actually made of gold. But when David Beckham married Victoria Adams, at an Irish castle in 1999, even his father said it was a fairytale. Today, though, quite a few people seem to think that fairytale is about to end.

The Beckhams, apparently, can’t agree about where the family should be based. David has been photographed with his wife looking “unimpressed”. Victoria’s tattoo tribute to him has, she says, been fading. She might, some people have suggested, even be getting it lasered off.

But this week Victoria told Grazia magazine that rumours about a split were wrong. “I am blessed,” she said, “to have a wonderful husband and beautiful, healthy, happy children.” She and David were “strong as both partners and parents”. And some of us found ourselves hoping that she was right. The question is, why do we care?

We have followed their trajectory for more than 20 years; the tale of a girl who watched Fame when she was six, decided to become a pop star, and went on to be a member of one of the most famous pop groups in the world. The tale of a boy from Chingford, the son of a hairdresser and a kitchen fitter, who became the most famous footballer in the world. He was the young man who watched a video of a pop star and plucked up the courage to chat her up. Their tale spawned another when they sat on golden thrones and gave birth to a brand. And as the narrative came together, we watched transfixed.

For this was a new form of royalty for the age of celebrity; a re-imagining in which you could be born in Leytonstone and be more famous than the Queen. The Beckhams bought a house that used to be a children’s home and the media called it Beckingham Palace. We called them Posh and Becks, because we like to bring rich, successful people down to earth, but here is the kicker – we actually knew that they were pretty down to earth. We understood the transaction. They got the money. We got the pics.

We understood that if theirs was a tale of celebrity, behind it lay a tale of endurance and graft. When Victoria’s band split and her solo singing career didn’t take off, she turned her hand to fashion. She could have stuck her name on almost anything she chose and watched polyester turn to gold. But she didn’t. What she did was design a whole collection and show it to some of the industry’s toughest critics. They loved it, and last year at the British Fashion Awards, she won brand of the year.

Indeed Victoria’s brand, like her husband’s, came out of what former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson calls “the school of hard graft”. You don’t get to create award-winning fashion labels, or captain England for six years, by sitting around eating Doritos and watching Jeremy Kyle.

David would practise, said Ferguson, “with a relentless application that the vast majority of less gifted players wouldn’t contemplate”. We have seen the hairstyles, the sarongs, the strange perfumes and the pants. We’ve even mused about what’s behind the pants. But when he retired from football two years ago, the man nicknamed Goldenballs said: “I just want people to see me as a hardworking footballer.” Which, it’s clear, he was.

It’s comforting that even in this age of celebrity we look behind the glitz. It matters that Victoria gets up at 6am, six days a week, and works out for an hour and a half before giving her four children breakfast and taking them to school. That she’s a charity ambassador for the United Nations and runs a global brand. She’s the woman who has it all and the woman who does it all, while looking as if she has just stepped off the cover of Vogue. But there is a sense that it’s not undeserved.

We all know that 42% of marriages now end in divorce. But even in a world that loves to slap a celebrity down, we still want them to be OK because, basically, we like them.

Victoria Beckham: I used to feel famous, but now I feel successful

Read more

We like them because, if this is a fairytale, it’s a very British fairytale, a tale of endeavour and family loyalty. We like the idea that they have handled their ups and downs – in football, pop and upsetting rumours – with good humour and grace. We like the notion that you can still be very rich and very successful and apparently quite modest and funny and nice, and you can do all this while having a partner and children you adore.